I don't see the world as something divided between right and left.

As my father [Javāharlāl Nehrū] said, you have to keep an open mind, but you have to pour something into it - otherwise ideas slip away like sand between your fingers.

My father was prime minister, and to take care of his home, to be his hostess, automatically meant to have my hands in politics - to meet people, to know their games, their secrets.

You said, 'How is it possible for democracy to work with an illiterate people who are dying of hunger?' But with that people we made a democracy work.

Sometimes friends are dangerous. We must be very careful about the help friends give us.

It has been my experience that people who are at cross-purposes with nature are cynical about mankind and ill at ease with themselves.

When one has had a life as difficult as mine, one doesn't worry about how others will react.